Rebecca Moss aboard the Hanjin Geneva: ‘It has forcefully underscored the contradictions I always perceived about this endless stream of stuff constantly flowing across the Pacific.’
Photograph: Courtesy of Rebecca Moss

Whether she’s rolling down a hill littered with mousetraps or attempting to make her way out of a muddy puddle on a pogo stick, much of Rebecca Moss’s art stems from putting herself in slapstick or surreal scenarios.

But the 25-year-old British absurdist artist now finds herself in a bizarre situation she had little hand in creating: she’s one of 25 people stranded amid thousands of shipping containers on a 65,000-tonne ship currently sitting off the coast of Japan with no destination.

The collapse of the Seoul-based company has left an estimated 2,500 sailors, most of them from South Korea, the Philippines and Indonesia, stranded at sea alongside $14bn worth of goods. Ports, worried about the company’s inability to pay for docking or cargo handling, have turned the ships away while the company scrambles to ensure its vessels won’t be seized by creditors.

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The Hanjin Geneva, laden with goods that range from animal skins to frozen French fries, left Vancouver last month en route to Shanghai. Moss embarked on the ship as part of an artist residency – titled “23 Days at Sea” – organised by Vancouver’s Access Gallery. Wednesday was her 22nd day on board. An MA student at the Royal College of Art in London, her aim was to explore the comedic potential of the clash between mechanical systems and nature.

The company’s collapse came about a week after she embarked, leaving Moss and the two dozen others – including a crew from the Philippines, Germany and Poland as well as two American passengers – floating in international waters until a solution can be found. “The unknown duration is the hardest thing of all to manage,” said Moss.

Picture by performance artist Rebecca Moss who is stranded on the Hanjin Geneva. Photograph: Courtesy of Rebecca Moss

Tapping into spotty Wi-Fi, she’s been able to follow the news and watch as economic forces render the captain and crew powerless to take decisions. “We are united in vulnerability against global corporations that are happy to let us sit here while they grab what they can salvage,” she said. “We have liberty and dignity taken away from us while we bob away aimlessly at sea.”

In recent days the company has won some reprieve, in the form of court protection that allowed goods from at least four ships to be unloaded at ports in the US and a sell-off of three of its vessels.

The ship’s plight has become the focus of Moss’s residency. Footage she filmed of containers being diligently loaded on to the ship takes on a new tone with the realisation that the ship has no destination, she said, while the necessity of the goods is thrown into question as they languish onboard. “It has forcefully underscored the contradictions I always perceived about this endless stream of stuff that is constantly flowing across the Pacific,” said Moss.

The absurdity she had hoped to find when she embarked on the ship now seems to be everywhere she looks. “For those familiar with my art practice, and with my sense of humour, this situation is oddly suited to me and I am sure will inform my work for years to come.”